


Tattoo You

by Eralk Fang (EralkFang)



Category: Rock of Ages (2012)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-11
Updated: 2012-10-11
Packaged: 2018-05-19 06:24:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5956938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EralkFang/pseuds/Eralk%20Fang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“That’s a story tattoo, I can tell.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tattoo You

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the Rolling Stones album. The tattooing technique Dennis refers to is handpoking or [tebori](http://wiki.bmezine.com/index.php?title=Tebori). 

They’re in the office, necking on the couch. Dennis feels like they’re always doing it in the office. He’s pointed out several times that they both have perfectly good beds at their respective homes, but Lonny seems to enjoy the illicit thrill of doing it behind closed doors at work and, anyway, it’s not like he’s going to stop Lonny from lunging at him whenever he feels like. They’ve got more than enough time to make up for already. 

Lonny’s got him up against the couch and feverishly trying to remove Dennis’ shirt while kissing him blind. Dennis slides his hands under Lonny’s suspenders and they fall off his broad shoulders to dangle at his hips, which Dennis grabs at for more leverage.

Lonny gets his shirt undone and pushes it off his shoulders, diving down to kiss Dennis’ neck. Dennis hums in approval and he can feel Lonny’s grin against his neck. He slides his hands up Lonny’s thin t-shirt; Lonny licks a stripe up the side of his neck, pulling on his hair for leverage. Their hips slide together, and he closes his eyes. 

And then Lonny stops moving and says, “You’ve got a tattoo!”

Dennis cracks open one eye to see if Lonny is joking. All he can really see is hair, as Lonny is staring at where his neck meets his back. “Of course I have tattoos,” Dennis says flatly. The mood is entirely broken. 

Lonny sits back, still straddling him. Dennis’ hands fall to his hips. “Well, yes, you have these—” Lonny picks up Dennis’ left hand and rubs the ankh tattoo there— “but…” Lonny shrugs expansively. “I dunno, I guess I thought you didn’t have any other ones.”

“I’ve been in this business since you were a kid.”

Lonny scratches at his neck. “Well, until a few months ago, I didn’t even know if you had skin under your shirt. Well, shirt _s_ , plural. I think you’re the only man in LA who actually wears two or more layers on a daily basis year-round.”

“Well, one of us has to understand the concept of sleeves.” 

Lonny rolls his eyes and tugs at his bare shoulders. “C’mon, let me see.”

Dennis sits up, which forces Lonny to dismount; the couch, which Dennis has had since his first nightclub, groans under their combined weight at one point. Without Lonny on top of him, he feels cold. 

Dennis pulls his shirt back on to remove his vest properly and then takes the shirt off. He’s not often shirtless—he prides himself on being, unlike a lot of older men in this industry, cognizant of his aging body and who wants to see it (Lonny, with a flattering bordering on alarming enthusiasm)—but the shitty fan in the corner feels nice on his skin and he feels like he’s getting away with something. He smiles. Lonny always makes him feel like he’s getting away with something.

Dennis leans forward to let Lonny take a look. The tattoo in question is actually two different tattoos—a small, faded peace sign above an eagle.

“Okay, eagle, I get,” Lonny says—he already knows the story of Dennis’ first nightclub, The Eagle, which closed in a matter of months, but had made enough of an impression that the Bourbon opened with a reputation—“but the peace sign? That’s a story tattoo, I can tell.”

“Ah,” Dennis says, settling back into the couch and spreading his arms out. Lonny curls, or rather angles, up to him, laying his head upon the proffered shoulder. “Now, as you know, I have been a connoisseur of rock since the very beginning of our humble movement—“

“Because you’re an old fart,” Lonny interjects affectionately. 

“Because I’m an old fart,” Dennis repeats calmly, “but I wasn’t always an old fart. I won’t bore you with the details, but it was the early sixties in Berkley. There was this _girl_ , Julia.” Dennis carefully enunciates her name.

“Was she hot?” Lonny asks. 

“Oh, she was _gorgeous_ ,” Dennis says. “In fact, Julia was so astonishingly beautiful that I abandoned civilization and spent a blissful three months traveling up and down the West Coast in a van with her and her friends. It was all very _On the Road_.”

“So what happened?”

“Well, Julia had this friend Derek.”

“Oh,” Lonny hisses through his teeth, grimacing briefly. 

“Derek was a tattoo artist who was going to open his own shop as soon as we got back, and Julia was his apprentice.”

“Well, that’s just suspicious.”

“As I said, she was _gorgeous_. And I was just a kid; I really didn’t know any better. Anyway, while I was soaking up the culture, the conversation, and the free pot, she decided that, in order to take our relationship to the next level, it would be a sign of trust and commitment if I let her tattoo me.”

“Kinky.” Dennis looks down to see Lonny bite his lip and grin at him; he smiles back, but continues. 

“And Julia was the first really _cool_ girl I’d ever dated, and I wanted to keep up. She was also spending a lot of time with Derek, so I guess I just wanted her attention. So I said yes, of course.

“We had stopped somewhere in northern California, on the side of the highway. It was high noon, and everybody else was either asleep, wasted, or wandering off, and it was just me and her. I thought we might be able to talk—that’s what I liked about Julia, we could really _talk_ —but she was too nervous. She was using this really old-school technique Derek had taught her, since we obviously didn’t have any proper equipment, and it hurt. It really hurt. It’s a miracle I went back for more, but none of the other ones hurt that much, not even these.” 

He halfheartedly gestures with his hands to indicate the rose and ankh, and falls silent. He’s not one to look back wistfully, but he hasn’t thought about Julia in a long time; her long, dark hair, how her hand shook inking him, and the way he could never make her laugh. It feels like a different universe, let alone a different time of his life.

Lonny’s voice breaks through his brief reverie. “What happened?”

Dennis inhales sharply. “Oh,” he says, offhandedly, “I found out that she and Derek were sleeping together. Free love and all that; I wasn’t prepared for that whole scene. I hitchhiked back to civilization as soon as I found out, which is a story unto itself, crashed with a friend, and then…”

Dennis gestures around him to the Bourbon Room, and glances down at Lonny, who looks up at him. It’s an interesting perspective, given Lonny’s usual advantage of height. 

“It’s a story, I suppose,” Lonny says, yawning. “Although,” he says, after consideration, you wouldn’t be here if that hadn’t happened. And then I would have never met you.”

“And then we would never dragged our feet for the better part of seven years.”

“Yeah, well, it’s all about the anticipation, isn’t it? Makes the sex better.”

“Ah, if you’d only declared yourself during my glory years,” Dennis says, as a joke. 

Lonny sits up, tosses his spindly legs over Dennis’ lap, and grabs his face. Dennis is still having trouble getting used to how intense Lonny can get about him—it always surprises him, and he thinks it always will. “Babe,” Lonny purrs, “these _are_ your glory years.”

Dennis grins. He’s such a sucker for being lunged at. 


End file.
